Cracked it! kit/extract users please read

[strideredc]

i felt the need to post because i have been hovering on this forum for the last 6 weeks and have gained SO MUCH info...

14 years ago when i was about 20ish i tried a crappy kit brew from Boots and never really liked the results...

i saw a recipie for birch sap wine/turbo cider in march and my interest has been rekindled from there to trying home brew again. i started with an EDME stout from wilko (yes i put 1kg of cane sugar in it!) and the result was ok'ish and from there started looking at at extract clones, the wheat beers to be precise and have been tinkering with extract and part grain and now almost full grain? (i haven't been that exact with amounts and need LME to top up to gravity)

Everyone has been getting better but the first hoe-garden! i made from the extract recipe on here was so strongly flavored that i through that chemicals had leaked form the FV in to the brew! disgusting! burnt liquid plastic, but after tipping 2l away i decided to keep the others... 4/5 weeks on and only in the last week its now ''very'' good. not perfect but quite nice (still a bit over flavored but 1.5 wees before it was still disgusting, when i mean disgusting i wouldn't have drunk it if it was the last beer i would ever drink!

4-6 brews on i have just tasted my new hoe-g! mainly all grain and wow! its 8 days in ( just nicked a sample out) and tasted better MUCH better than the Eringer that i am now drinking! the secret??? a smack pack of Wyest 3044?

i was beginging to think that home brew would never be that good (i didnt know anyone that brews and have never tasted any HB good or bad apart from mine...bad!) i now fully belive you can make brews better!not nececelay the right word but JUST as good as any you can buy, maybe better!

thanks jimsbeerkit forum and all those that sail on her!

dont give up becasue good results are just around the corner...

[HighHops]

Welcome to jim's strideredc.

That's it! You never know what's around the corner, good or bad. I think tomorrow I am going to have to admit defeat on 40 bottles of Hopback summer lightnin that just tastes like sucking on an old shoe box and pour them down the drain (from a brew day that went from bad to worse a few weeks ago - the sun was shining, I cracked a cold one open and took my eye of the ball. It happens!!) But tomorrow mornin, I have also got 10 gallon of amarillo pale ale to bottle / keg that tastes like summer in a glass(from a secondary QA test). It's the world cup, England are about to spank one of the colonies at football, the sun is shining and the barbies smokin....

It's ups and downs this brewing malarky. Highs and lows. I luvvit !!

[soupdragon]

4-6 brews on i have just tasted my new hoe-g! mainly all grain and wow! its 8 days in ( just nicked a sample out) and tasted better MUCH better than the Eringer that i am now drinking! the secret??? a smack pack of Wyest 3044?

Hi strideredc
Just to confirm......... A simple change of yeast made all the difference to the quality of your beer?
I've been working on my method ( dried extract and s-04 or nottingham yeast ) and so far the results are promising but after about 2 months in barrel my beer starts to take on a strange flavour. I've tasted something similar before in Adnams Regatta and a few other commercial beers. Many years ago I used to brew from grain and suffered from the exact same taste and ended up giving up on it
I was thinking that i might be carrying too much hop debris/yeast into the f/v so I'm planning to rack my next brew into another fermenter to rest it for a week to see if that improves things. The only beer I can remember turning out "properly" was a stout that I rested for a week.
I do realise that yeast is often overlooked by some of the less experienced brewers ( myself included ), but if a good liquid yeast is really the answer then I'll be a very happy camper
Anybody else have a view on the subject?

Cheers Tom